We can be stakeholders in the future of the U.S., not free-riders.  We are called to participate in its renewal. Not only can we do what is asked but we’re being asked what should be done. 

In true  Me2We style Obama keeps assuming that you and I can

 recruit teams of rivals (and participate in other teams) to get things done better – and lift our world together.  And we keep proving him right. Beyond volunteering today, find a need that you can fill - with others’ help. Regularly practiced responsibility is like any habit. It becomes second nature after awhile. The key is regularity. 

I started small, in the hopes I will keep it up, joining a few others, stacking shelves at my local food bank. Being a part of this unlikely team of convivial misfits feeds my soul.  Plus I improved  my storyboarding method by adapting our team leader’s innovation. He suggested boxing and labeling stuff  by who was using the food.  For example, “Parent, infant, 2 kids” or “2 adults” or “diabetic.” (I just wish I had Buffy Wicks’ talents.)

As Obama said yesterday, ““If we could just recognize ourselves in one another …” and today, “Don’t underestimate the power of people who join together…”

Here’s six keys to cultivating thriving teams like the thousands created during the “get it done”, “no drama” Obama campaign:

1. Be specific about the top, actionable goal of the group.

2. Identify what needs to be done to reach the goal, then recruit individuals who have the specific talents or other resources to get those tasks done.

3. Approach each person by describing the goal, the specific way each one can help achieve it and why it would benefit that person; then describe the Sweet Spot of mutual benefit for all teammates to participate. 

4. Review above 3 items with everyone when first meeting together; ask for improvements in the goal and if others should be recruited to accomplish it; then agree on who should facilitate the group. 

5. Seek agreement on the Rules of Engagement by which your group will operate and on the timetable.

6. When the goal is met, de-brief on what worked and what didn’t, then discuss other possible goals for which some or all team mates may want to work together again.

Speaking of teamwork, Patrick May predicted that today will be the “most socially networked moment in history.” Ironically those out and about in D.C. may not be participating because their mobile phones (talking, texting and sending videos and photos) have already overloaded the networks. The rest of us could join in at several sites.

In a bad economy don’t be blind to opportunities. Use your limited resources well.   Savor your work with others. Hackneyed advice? Yes.  Yet you can increase your chances for all three

 by hiring,  partnering or otherwise collaborating with people who, like Leonardo Da Vinci, “cultivate ambidexterity.”  They use their whole mind. They are often outliers.

Such multi-talented people are innately oriented towards 

cross-training.  Fewer people (who are ambidexterous) can do more better. Also, per Steve Neiderhauser, they “can imagine the future” in ways that “a linear worker” cannot. To anchor in your mind this notion of cultivating diverse talents (in this case, art and technology) read about the bronze horse “That Never Was.”

Here’s good news. You can alter your brain’s capacity at any age.  Read How the Brain Changes Itself by one of my heroes, Dr. Norman Doidge.

You may recall your Myers-Briggs type. Now, via Typealyzer, discover your blog’s personality type.  Find out in seconds – complete with a description and diagam of your blog’s type. As an  

 INTJ (if I remember right) I somehow write an ISTJ (Duty Fulfiller) blog  - just like Mark Cuban.  Those results may surprise my friends and the SEC. My other  blog is typed as an INTJ (Scientist). 

I don’t know about the accuracy of the underlying ”uClassify” technology created by the Swedes at PRfekt but it sure is captivating. Since many of us are tempted to see how others’ blogs get categorized after we check our own – Typealyzer may go viral.  It is free after all. In true Me2We fashion the inventors are asking for our ideas about other ways to use this technology.

Don’t stop now.  GenderAnalyzer also uses uClassify to determine whether a blog is written by a man or a woman.  (How will you feel if they get it wrong?)   There’s more. If I compared your writing to a well-known writer – who would that author be?

… is more important than who grooms you,”observed Stanford biologist, Robert Sapolsky.  He studies baboons, humans, group behavior and stress. “Social support is vital, no matter how healthy you are.”

Suggests psychology professor Dacher Keltner,  “Human beings are wired to

 care and give and it’s probably our best route to happiness.”

Literally see how we look when we connect well with each other in Keltner’s book due out in January, Born to Be Good.   In it 60 photos of human emotions support his view that, “emotion is the key to living the good life and how the path to happiness goes through human emotions that connect people to one another.” 

Unlike Robert Greene who advocates power through manipulation. Keltner outlines an approach to attracting great support and friendship through giving, “power to those who can best serve the interests of the group.” Experiments he led with Cameron Anderson, show that such “social intelligence is essential not only to rising to power, but also to keeping it.”  The so-called “Machiavellians” who adopted Greene’s approach in the experiments did not retain power in their group. 

One reason? Trust brings us closer. Yes that’s obvious, yet Michael Kosfeld’s mind game shows you how. Pamela Paxton and Jeremy Adam Smith found that, in the U.S. trust has been “declining for decades.“ 

So Keltner bring good news.  Our instincts to be ”selfish, individualistic, and competitive” are but “half the story.”  His research shows we can build trust and connection by cultivating ”gratitude, amusement, awe and even embarrassment.”

Mourning Mumbai, in giving thanks today consider this Sikh saying, “let all humanity be your sect.”